There. Now you're covered for your next 9 posts in this thread. Tis the season. I just felt like giving.
Gun Control
There. Now you're covered for your next 9 posts in this thread. Tis the season. I just felt like giving.
You don't want to know how data works and what the word "mass" means as it specifically applies to the stats being reported?
that there is no standard definition for "mass shooting"....even mother jones thinks so...
because at the end of the day....it's fucking gun violence.
Focus steve. Focus.
The shooting tracker site picked a number (looks like 4) and reported all incidents that reach or surpass that threshold. THAT is why the largely singular shooting incidents on the tribune page don't show up.
Whether or not the first site adheres to a widely recognized standard is irrelevant. Each site is reporting different phenomenon.
So at the end of the day, your constant implications that chicago is somehow ignored because no one cares about it is bullshit, because it fails to recognize what's actually being reported on each site.
If you want to get bitchy, get on the tribune for not reporting whatever incident happened on 11/22/15 that shows up on the other site. They apparently really did miss something.
The shooting tracker site picked a number (looks like 4) and reported all incidents that reach or surpass that threshold. THAT is why the largely singular shooting incidents on the tribune page don't show up.
Whether or not the first site adheres to a widely recognized standard is irrelevant. Each site is reporting different phenomenon.
So at the end of the day, your constant implications that chicago is somehow ignored because no one cares about it is bullshit, because it fails to recognize what's actually being reported on each site.
If you want to get bitchy, get on the tribune for not reporting whatever incident happened on 11/22/15 that shows up on the other site. They apparently really did miss something.
Fact. Mass shootings have become the norm. We have become desensitized by them.
Fact. There is more than one gun per citizen in our country
Fact. We have a problem with gun violence committed by assholes, be they white, black brown or yellow, Xtian, Muslim or Atheist, they are all assholes
Fact. The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, and they oppose any kind of common sense legislation regarding guns.
Fact. It is harder to buy a car than it is a gun and ammo.
Fact. "We" cling to the promises of a 200+ year old document like it is gold. There is no way the Founding Fathers could have conceptualized the challenges we face in the modern world. If they knew about challenges from weapons to climate change and abortion, nuclear weapons and global terrorism, they would flip their collective wigs.
Neither side has come up with anything even close to a common sense solution. It is simply froth froth froth...
IMHO...the solution is to mandate background checks, to be paid for by the purchaser. Also liability insurance should be required, slip it in under homeowners or renters insurance. Almost most importantly, ammunition sales should be monitored...when it is apparent that some dude is stockpiling ammo, alarm bells should go off somewhere. Training certification and safety devices can be used to bring down the costs of insurance,
This country was stolen from the aboriginals at the point of a gun, and the gun will end this country if we dont take control
Yes this is Orwellian...but that is where our society has gone.
Fact. There is more than one gun per citizen in our country
Fact. We have a problem with gun violence committed by assholes, be they white, black brown or yellow, Xtian, Muslim or Atheist, they are all assholes
Fact. The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, and they oppose any kind of common sense legislation regarding guns.
Fact. It is harder to buy a car than it is a gun and ammo.
Fact. "We" cling to the promises of a 200+ year old document like it is gold. There is no way the Founding Fathers could have conceptualized the challenges we face in the modern world. If they knew about challenges from weapons to climate change and abortion, nuclear weapons and global terrorism, they would flip their collective wigs.
Neither side has come up with anything even close to a common sense solution. It is simply froth froth froth...
IMHO...the solution is to mandate background checks, to be paid for by the purchaser. Also liability insurance should be required, slip it in under homeowners or renters insurance. Almost most importantly, ammunition sales should be monitored...when it is apparent that some dude is stockpiling ammo, alarm bells should go off somewhere. Training certification and safety devices can be used to bring down the costs of insurance,
This country was stolen from the aboriginals at the point of a gun, and the gun will end this country if we dont take control
Yes this is Orwellian...but that is where our society has gone.
To your first point, definitely agreed. The anti gun crowd chooses to believe guns force good people to go rogue, and the pro gun crowd doesn't offer a solution other than not gun control.
Liability insurance, not sure how that would work to prevent murder, if you're going away for life, who cares if your premium goes up, if your loved one has just been murdered, who cares if you get a nice fat check? Gun owner or not I think a personal umbrella policy is a must in today's society, I know I'll never go on a murderous rampage with my gun, but there's a million other reasons people want to sue each other these days.
The background checks and ammo purchases aren't so much a sticking point for me, or most gun owners I know, they are however, a non-solution IMHO. All the mass shootings I can think of off the top of my head (meaning ones that got media coverage and that we're all talking about) were committed by people who passed background checks, and while maybe the perpetrator had several thousand rounds of ammo, they only used a few hundred. That makes tracking ammo purchases a waste of time and resources IMHO, you'd catch a guy like me who shoots a lot, when I order ammo, it's usually 5-10k rounds at a time, if I knew that put me on a watch list, I'd still do it, and the FBI is welcome to come to the range and watch me shoot anywhere from 500-1500 rounds in an afternoon. If I were trying to stay under the radar, I'd purchase whatever the maximum was at whatever the maximum interval was to keep myself off the list, unless you were required to turn in your empty brass, you'd still be able to amass a pretty decent supply easily and secretly.
Forget the ammo watch, go ahead and require a BG or some form of license, you'll get push back, but it'll be okay and maybe stop a couple homicides, probably not the mass shootings we're talking about, but a couple murders is still more than nothing.
Training and certification, yes, absolutely, if you're not doing that now voluntarily you're dumb. I still think firearms safety should be taught in school, with more guns than people in this country, you just may find yourself near one, better to know how to use it, or at least clear it. If you carry, you should know how to use it, or it's just dead weight, but in that same vein, if one is trained and willing, why not allow them to carry? We allow any fuddy-duddy cop who can shoot a simple 50rd qualifier to carry virtually everywhere in every state, why not trained citizens too. More CCW issuance hasn't lead to more murder. Sure they don't prevent all homicide, but CCW holders have prevented quite a few, seems worth it right?
All the common sense gun control in the world isn't going top fix our violence problem, and that's where the real issue lies. Gun violence is still just violence, and to ramble on about limiting this or that, bolt action or semi doesn't solve the root of the problem. Who gives a shit it a bolt action is poorly suited for mass murder, one can still murder with it, and if you're the one getting murdered, I'm not sure you'd care what tool you were being killed with. When I hear people babbling about bullet buttons, and ARs being evil, all I can figure is that they're okay with the crazies walking among them and maybe killing a few people, as long a they do it with inefficient tools to keep the body count low.
Time to put some money into studying and classifying "mass murders" and mass murderers and coming up with a solution to the root problem, instead of the common tool. Conveniently, it's a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to fix that problem and you'll meet less resistance than it is to modify the 2nd.
Suicides are a bigger problem than murders, zero points for failing to directly address the most significant problem in gun violence. Guns are the issue there since they're magnitudes more effective in people's suicidal whims than the next closest option.
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Yeah not really. Just like an ISIS website doesn't magically create dickheads. They're both just providing easier avenues to the destructive end result. A widespread publicly accepted gun owning culture does for instance make it seem a lot more 'normal' when an asshole owns a few though. There's really no reason to facilitate it either way.
And to your larger point, yes it's part of an ingrained culture not just of violence but of empowerment. But hugs aren't going to fix it. And it's pretty much impossible to legislate culture. There are some things that CAN be legislated though. And the result is already out there for everyone (except for americans) to see.
Liability insurance for the accidents and incidents resultant from irresponsible weapons use and misuse...not under the illusion that it would lower the murder rate.
I think our problem lies in the glorification of weapons though history, movies and video games...we have become desensitized to violence and injury to others. Until someone next to you disappears in a pink mist, you wont appreciate the damage a weapon can do...
We really need to look at solutions developed in other countries such as Japan, Australia and the like...countries that have limited to the point of eliminating gun violence. Turning off the collective national ego is the first step...
I think our problem lies in the glorification of weapons though history, movies and video games...we have become desensitized to violence and injury to others. Until someone next to you disappears in a pink mist, you wont appreciate the damage a weapon can do...
We really need to look at solutions developed in other countries such as Japan, Australia and the like...countries that have limited to the point of eliminating gun violence. Turning off the collective national ego is the first step...
On that point, gun makers also should fall under the same safety regulation system that all other consumer products do - CPSC - just like cars or toasters. There's no good reason to exempt them.
Same goes with ammo and lead. Lead is banned from use in almost all other products (paint, gasoline, etc), there's no logical reason to let gun owners pollute the environment/harm themselves/others with lead contamination when viable alternatives are readily available.
http://watch.opb.org/video/2302231466/
Same goes with ammo and lead. Lead is banned from use in almost all other products (paint, gasoline, etc), there's no logical reason to let gun owners pollute the environment/harm themselves/others with lead contamination when viable alternatives are readily available.
http://watch.opb.org/video/2302231466/
Do you believe people are able to control their whims and emotions to the point where this would be safer than more dangerous?
While I've had several friends commit suicide (none by gun), I disagree that it's the most significant problem with gun violence. Sure there are victims, I still resent by friends for making that choice and leaving so much pain in their wake, but suicide is a personal choice. Guns make it easy but where there's a will there's a way as my friends demonstrated.
My issue personally with gun violence is innocent and random bystanders getting killed.
Even this is limited to 'mass' shootings rather than the accidental killings that, while tragic, can largely be prevented by discipline/training/proper storage and which I categorize along the lines of car accidents under 'shit happens'.
You can't discount the reality of the situation, personal anecdotes are meaningless. 2/3 of all guns deaths in America are suicides and most other suicide attempts via other methods are unsuccessful - most suicide attempts are impulsive so the method matters. The Israeli military made a simple change in their gun policy on the weekend and they cut suicides 40%. If we cut US gun suicides 40% that would be nearly equal to ALL US gun murders. Suicides absolutely matter.
I didn't say they didn't matter, just that gun related suicide isn't what I personally think is the biggest issue when it comes to gun violence.
The killing of random people like at PP, CA, SC etc is what I find totally abhorrent.
Killing oneself is not the same as indiscriminately killing others regardless of the statistics.
The killing of random people like at PP, CA, SC etc is what I find totally abhorrent.
Killing oneself is not the same as indiscriminately killing others regardless of the statistics.
The reality is that if you asked people whether they find an event like Sandy Hook or a gun suicide more disturbing, I'd bet the vast majority of people would say Sandy Hook.
One is random violence projected on others versus self-infliction.
Equating the two is delusional.
One is random violence projected on others versus self-infliction.
Equating the two is delusional.
Why? When sensible controls will likely decrease both as seen from other post-industrial countries that have dealt with the same issue.
The only difference is severity, death from gun violence doesn't discriminate why should we?
Only deluded people ignore the mental health crisis in the US. It's been going on for a few decades now. It a factor in a range of major problems our society faces, not just gun violence.
It's also deluded to focus on rare mass incidents over the common non-mass incidents.
Hell, more children are killed every year in gun accidents than mass shootings. Keep on going down the wrong path and things won't change.
It's also deluded to focus on rare mass incidents over the common non-mass incidents.
Hell, more children are killed every year in gun accidents than mass shootings. Keep on going down the wrong path and things won't change.
Because gun rights in the US have reached 'untouchable' status and a general 'guns are bad, mkay?' approach won't make a dent.
They are never going to to away here.
Kind of like alcohol.
It ruins lives every single day, likely at levels far exceeding guns.
Yet, where is the outrage about people drinking themselves to death? Why no total ban?
Because people are too attached and the 'danger' too removed for them to take such drastic action.
Yet, it was quite easy for Drunk Driving to become a focal point, through laws and societal pressure, to at least reduce the amount of harm inflicted on others.
I've got a manic-depressive/schitzo brother who's tried to kill himself so I'm well versed on mental illness, thanks.
My focus isn't on 'mass' shootings, rather it's on violence against others.
Most gun accidents involving children are entirely preventable.
People being idiots is not, which is how kids get their hands on guns.
I am not a 'pro-gun', Constitutional scholar frother.
While I was raised in a rural environment where guns were a part of daily life, my guns are 2,000 miles from my house in a safe. My sons have never held or fired a firearm either.
bites tongue.
because the only thing we love more than the second amendment is the first?
I'd be willing to bet that totally depends on who you're talking too.
see donald trump?
Them non-enlisted white boys just LOOOOOVEEE playing soldier don't they?
http://gawker.com/gun-rights-groups-to-hold-fake-mass-shooting-at-ut-this-1747134121
http://gawker.com/gun-rights-groups-to-hold-fake-mass-shooting-at-ut-this-1747134121
I agree in so mach as most people know what death is anymore. People don't hunt, people don't take care of their sick relatives and most people will never serve in the armed forces or be a first responder, or know anybody who has. Death is final and it's not exactly the prettiest thing you'll encounter, however I personally don't believe that misunderstanding or not appreciating life plays a big role in mass shootings, if anything, I think it's the opposite, I think people choose mass murder because it's permanent and tears people apart, that ensures they'll be remembered.
A widespread weapon ban is a partial solution, but it's not the only solution. That's where the extreme gun control crowd loses the plot, a nearly complete refusal to entertain any options other than bans/confiscation. The more moderate gun control crowd only wants to ban scary looking guns and wants background checks, which again, have failed to prevent a huge number of mass shootings. If the specific goal is to reduce the number of shootings, then there is a valid argument to be made for a total gun ban, or at least very restrictive laws like England and Aus., but if the goal is to solve the violence problem, we need to be a little more creative and try a little harder, we can have our cake and eat it too.
Personally, I would remove the suicide deaths from the big scary gun deaths total, same as I'd differentiate between gang killings, self defense and mass murder, as they're all separate issues that require separate solutions.
Suicide by firearm accounts for about half the suicides in this country, and much like mass shootings, I think it's only because a gun is an efficient tool, take the gun away and these people are still suicidal, and still have a couple dozen options, focusing on guns only puts on blinders to the real problem. The suicide rate by country seems to vary depending on the source, but all show roughly the same thing, access to guns and suicide rate don't appear to be linked, neither do economics, peace, climate or any other broad factor I can think of.
This Country has a huge mental heath crisis that dwarfs our gun violence crisis and nobody cares. Instead they lump it in with all gun deaths, ignore the other half of non-firearm suicides and pretend everything is okay. 40k people a year killing themselves, and that's problem, doesn't matter what method they choose, those are lives we could save if we spent half the money we do on either side of the gun lobbies on mental health and acknowledged the fact that not every body is helped by pills and a shrink and started funding research on other treatment options that show lots of promise. Instead we trot out their families to yell "guns are bad" on Capital hill again and continue to do nothing of value.
Yes, I think enough people can control themselves to not turn every minor incident into a shoot-out. If that weren't the case, we'd see an effect in States with high CCW issuance. Even here in Ca, issuance has skyrocketed in the last few years, yet there's no increase in "rage shootings", or whatever you want to call them. Same applies to States with historically high issuance and Constitutional carry States. Yet another thing nobody seems willing to study without bias.
Um.........
http://qz.com/437015/mapped-the-us-states-with-the-most-gun-owners-and-most-gun-deaths/
http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-ownership-by-state-2015-7
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-where-americans-are-most-likely-to-die-from-gun-shots-2015-6
Along the same note as suicides being a likely part of those statistics, I have to say, can't blame a feller for having that on the table when you live in Alabama.
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Actually they are linked, guns are over half (a real and significant source of the problem) - greater than the rate of the next two options combined since it's far more effective. The Israeli Army proved you wrong - they took away access to guns on the weekend and suicides dropped by over 40% because it's a transient impulse to take action on those suicidal thoughts:
Harvard said:
It's VERY important to consider method as typically attempts are not effective due to tool of choice:CDC said:
lostallhope.com said:
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The devil's advocate says:
Why is suicide a problem? As disturbing as it is to all of us, it removes some unstable people who, if "saved", continue to be a burden on society.
Why is suicide a problem? As disturbing as it is to all of us, it removes some unstable people who, if "saved", continue to be a burden on society.
Yes, having guns creates the ability to be killed by or kill with guns, but none of those show a correlation between concealed carry issuance and shooting deaths. It also doesn't differentiate between murder and suicide, that's skews the stats.
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa/suicide
States with the highest suicide rate also among the highest in gun ownership. Stands to reason that people commuting suicide choose guns because they're the easiest way to take the easy way out, and more access to guns means more people with the ability to choose guns as a way out.
Again, this is why I think we need to actually do a little research and not just yell "guns guns guns" whenever something bad happens. Do we have a problem? Yes, but as of right now, we don't even know what our problem is, we refuse to look at any statistics that don't have gun in the tittle and then wonder why it looks like a gun problem.
Edit, not sure how much you can trust Wikipedia, but this table takes suicide out of the equation, sort by gun ownership, and then look at murder rate. DC is the lowest gun ownership, and highest gun murder rate, other than that, it's a very random spread
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state
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I know that most stats include suicides which is why I mentioned it.
No one's refusing to look at stats, especially right now. I'm not sure why you'd even claim that. At the very least I just disagree with you that our biggest and greater problem is a violence culture. To me guns are absolutely a part of that, and make the manifestations much much worse. I don't know if you've read this whole thread but I've pages (shocker right?) of blathering on about the ideal scenario being a culture change as the most meaningful. But that's kind of impossible to steer as long as every fat white middle aged guy in some areas are doing their damndest to let everyone know they should have lots of firearms and carry them around in public everywhere. Getting rid of that kind of thing is going to have to happen first. And until it does, our cultural direction isn't going anywhere. I mean for fuck's sake, this kind of thing is absurd:
http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2015/12/03/gun-tv-24-hour-gun-home-shopping-network-launches-next-year/
You can't even do that with cigarettes.
One of the biggest hindrances to obtaining more valuable research is a constant very real effort from the NRA to prevent them from even being collected. When you've got someone actively working to block obtaining knowledge, that's kind of another big problem wouldn't you say?
As far as your earlier question of CAN people be trusted with dangerous things with the proper training etc.....of course. Obviously that can work. But you're aware of the bike industry.....if you haven't accepted that stupid people ruin things for everyone, you haven't been paying attention
I'm not sure why that applies to speed limits, motorized access on public lands etc, but somehow guns are different. Gotta make sacrifices to live in a civil society. We all do it.
No we definitely know what one of our problems is. There's really not much confusion on that, because the examples of places who have eliminated that problem have plenty of research to pour over. Every single problem that exists in humanity exists in other places.......with one very significant difference here. People go crazy and get depressed and like guy Ritchie movies in England too.
No one's refusing to look at stats, especially right now. I'm not sure why you'd even claim that. At the very least I just disagree with you that our biggest and greater problem is a violence culture. To me guns are absolutely a part of that, and make the manifestations much much worse. I don't know if you've read this whole thread but I've pages (shocker right?) of blathering on about the ideal scenario being a culture change as the most meaningful. But that's kind of impossible to steer as long as every fat white middle aged guy in some areas are doing their damndest to let everyone know they should have lots of firearms and carry them around in public everywhere. Getting rid of that kind of thing is going to have to happen first. And until it does, our cultural direction isn't going anywhere. I mean for fuck's sake, this kind of thing is absurd:
http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2015/12/03/gun-tv-24-hour-gun-home-shopping-network-launches-next-year/
You can't even do that with cigarettes.
One of the biggest hindrances to obtaining more valuable research is a constant very real effort from the NRA to prevent them from even being collected. When you've got someone actively working to block obtaining knowledge, that's kind of another big problem wouldn't you say?
As far as your earlier question of CAN people be trusted with dangerous things with the proper training etc.....of course. Obviously that can work. But you're aware of the bike industry.....if you haven't accepted that stupid people ruin things for everyone, you haven't been paying attention
I'm not sure why that applies to speed limits, motorized access on public lands etc, but somehow guns are different. Gotta make sacrifices to live in a civil society. We all do it.
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Kill old and physically sick people too same old story. We'll be coming for you soon. If the mentally ill shouldn't be treated, neither should the physically ill.
Sounds like bat shit crazy talk, like Ann Coulter. You'd make a fine Nazi if you think that way.
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Does a 24 hour gun shopping network sound bad? Sure, but only if you don't dig a little deeper. You can't just buy a gun on from a TV infomercial and have it shipped to your house, you can buy one and have it shipped to a dealer who then processes the paperwork, BG check etc. Same misconception the media ran with last week when they found out the San Bernardino killers ordered from online and mail order dealers "Oh noes, online retailers selling guns to criminals, and at a discount too", which is simply false.http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2015/12/03/gun-tv-24-hour-gun-home-shopping-network-launches-next-year/
You can't even do that with cigarettes.
One of the biggest hindrances to obtaining more valuable research is a constant very real effort from the NRA to prevent them from even being collected. When you've got someone actively working to block obtaining knowledge, that's kind of another big problem wouldn't you say?
As far as your earlier question of CAN people be trusted with dangerous things with the proper training etc.....of course. Obviously that can work. But you're aware of the bike industry.....if you haven't accepted that stupid people ruin things for everyone, you haven't been paying attention
I'm not sure why that applies to speed limits, motorized access on public lands etc, but somehow guns are different. Gotta make sacrifices to live in a civil society. We all do it.
No Tobacco TV, but you can buy all the discount tobacco online you want.
There are many reasons I'm not an NRA member, and their constant efforts to block any meaningful research is only one of them. If there were any reliable, non-biased reports from a government source I don't think the gun violence problem would look half as bad as when we have to rely on the anti gun groups doing independent research with a goal to show specific result. My issue with all the numbers I see today, they lump terrorist acts like the one in San Bernardino, school shootings, gang violence, and a parent killing their kids all into one blanket category, "mass shooting" and claim a gun ban or a background check is a one size fits all solution.
Stupid people definitely do ruin everything, but they shouldn't, . If we as a society do whatever it takes to make life idiot proof, we end up down a retarded rabbit hole like England where you have to wear high visibility clothing for virtually everything, and you get this silly shit http://www.snopes.com/2015/06/22/save-a-life-surrender-your-knife/
Look a little deeper. There is plenty of research from gov't agencies (including reporting from within the limited timeframes imposed on the CDC) and academia that are most certainly NOT from 'anti-gun' groups.
Don't confuse the loudest carriers as the sources. Unless of course you don't believe anything from universities as liberal bastions of vested interest.....
Whether you can amazon order firearms 24 hours a day wasn't really my point. It's advertising and further increasing the cultural saturation of both acceptability and yes, in a facilitating way, availability.
Don't confuse the loudest carriers as the sources. Unless of course you don't believe anything from universities as liberal bastions of vested interest.....
Whether you can amazon order firearms 24 hours a day wasn't really my point. It's advertising and further increasing the cultural saturation of both acceptability and yes, in a facilitating way, availability.
Well yeah, but because semis can't chill out for a few hours I still have a mountain pass by my house that closes all the time that my sufficient clearance, soft and studded 4wd truck has no problem with. Like I said, the manifestations are already everywhere. But when it comes to guns there seems to be no tolerance for it. And like sketchy highways in winter, it's a matter of people dying. So it's kind of a big deal and worth actually doing something about it......even if it inconveniences someone who wasn't the problem in the first place.
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Damn science! You amazing!